Ethnicity In a Frogs Body

Ethnicity Trapped in a Frogs BodyRace & History Lost In Disneys Princess & The Frog

What Its All About!

This presentation explores representations of race in Disneys The Princess & The Frog. Together, we will explore:How Disney attempted to answer criticism about the absence of African Americans with the debut of Tiana.Tiana the Princess or Tiana the Frog? What will you choose?! Disneys rewriting or sanitizing of African American History. Turning Disneys racist past into a cash cow! How Disney cashes in on its first African American princess.

The more you knowTiana is the first African American character to make appearances at Disney parks.After the films release, over 50 young children (mostly girls) were hospitalized with salmonella from kissing frogs. Tiana is the first Disney princess to have a job. Tiana is the second Disney Princess to kill the film's villain, the first being Mulan.Early in development, Tiana was originally called Maddy and worked as a chambermaid in the La Bouff household. However, public criticism eventually caused her character's name to be changed to Tiana and her job, a waitress.The reworking of the Princess & The Frog was greatly inspired by the life story of New Orleans chef Leah Chase. She would, in turn, contribute to Tianas Cookbook that was published when the film came out. Tiana is usually seen with Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Belle and Rapunzel more than the other princesses.

How Far did Disney stray?The Frog Prince by The Brothers GrimmThe heroine is already a princess and triggers the frog prince's shape shifting by tossing him against her bedroom wall.The frogprince and theprincess met at awell there lay under an old linden tree deep in a great dark wood near the castle.An exchange was made if the frog retrieved the princess' golden ball that fell into the well, that being if he would be loved as acompanion and playfellow andsit at the table to dine with the princess and eat from her plate and drink from her cup and sleep on her bed.The princess doesn't have a dream to fulfill.She had other sisters who were also older than she was, but the number of her siblingsis not written down.No mother is mentioned, but only the father who is the king.The enchanted prince has a servant named Henry who travels to the castle of the princess who has married thedisenchanted princeto escort them back to the kingdom of the prince's father.

The Frog Princess by E.D. BakerThe heroine is a princess. Despite being a princess; when she kisses the enchantedprince,she herself turnsinto a frog.The story has two female witches. Instead of one witch and a "shadow man"The princess was already engaged to a different prince, who happened to be her worst enemy.The princess was the niece of the witch of who helped her and the prince, and even did some magic herself.The prince and the princess do not get married till after taking their human forms once more.

Animals!

Disney has a long history of depicting minority characters as animals. With the release of the Princess and the Frog I had high hopes of seeing this trend change. Unfortunately, Disney decided to have its first African American Princess spend 52 of the movies 98 minutes in an amphibious state.

Meeting Maddy

Originally, Maddy was to be a chambermaid, and cultural critics were quick to pounce on the phonetic similarities betweenMaddy andmammy. Maddys occupation smacked of the ubiquitous mammy, the happy servant stereotype that dominated film and later television through most of the twentieth century.

Disney maintains whitenessGregory (2010) argued The Princess and the Frog stressed two important themes: Tianas desire to own her own restaurant and the maintenance of whiteness. Gregory first pointed out Disney maintained whiteness by allowing Tianas best friend, Charlotte, a white upper class woman to hold the princess title white Tiana remained in amphibian form. The other theme was the interracial relationship of Prince Naveen and Tiana. Naveen is not African American but from the imaginary land of Maldonia. This shows maintaining whiteness with Tiana marrying outside of her race, encouraging more modern values.

Maddys transformation into tiana.

This is one of Disneys original sketches of Tiana (Maddy). As you can see, Disney dramatically changed Tianas appearance giving her relaxed hair, softening her facial features including a less pronounced nose, deep set almond eyes and smaller lips and lightening her skin tone.

Making gumbo

Parasecoli (2010) claimed The Princess and the Frog showed off Tianas culinary skills and made her more acceptable for mainstream audiences. The researcher examined elements associated with the black princess such as gumbo and food. Gumbo was described as bringing individuals together because the different ingredients represented different racial groups. Race and food connected because race was perceived as a flavor carrying an exotic feeling. Race and ethnicity then becomes spices giving flavor to the blandness of mainstream culture through dynamics of appropriation & commodification while do little to modify privileges and hegemonic power (Parasecoli 2010: 455). Race becomes and exotic commodity which excited individuals from the dominant culture. Parasecois view suggested this makes Tiana acceptable to white audiences because of the racial authenticity. Tianas journey of cook to restaurant owner created less pressure from her race and more focus on her capabilities.

Sanitizing history1920s New Orleans Between 1910-1930, white women dominated non-factory dress making and seamstress positions. In 1920, African American men owned 32 of the 416 restaurants, cafes and lunchrooms in New Orleans, and none were owned by African American Women.In 1902 the state of Louisiana and street car companies required a portable screen to separate whites & blacks. Street car companies enforced this law until 1958. All persons licensed to conduct a restaurant, shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room or serve the two races anywhere under the same license. Jim Crow LawJim Crow laws would have prohibited the marriage of Prince Naveen to Tiana due to the interracial marriage restriction.

Disneys 1920s New OrleansTianas mother, Eudora, is portrayed as the finest dress maker in New Orleans catering to the richest man in Louisiana. Aside from a quick encounter with the Fenner Brothers who carry the deed for Tianas dream restaurant location, there is no real obstacle outside of money standing in the way of Tiana owning her own restaurant. Although Eudora and Tiana are seen at the back of the street car, there are no clear indicators that the Jim Crow laws ever existed. When Tiana finally opens her restaurant, Tianas Palace, Disney clearly depicts the intermingling of the races.And they lived happily ever after

In The Princess and the Frog, viewers are left to their own knowledge about New Orleans during the Jim Crow era. There are no indications of how Tiana and her parents were influenced by race, class and gender.

Henry Giroux (1999, p. 68) contends that such renderings of history are not merely an edited, sanitary, nostalgic view of history, free from poverty, class difference, and urban decay, they shape public memory in ways that benefit corporate interests, present US history as innocent and not a historically specific politically constructed landscape of power (p. 109).

What do the experts say? Harris (1992), Raudine Sims Bishop states that, multicultural literature is one of the most powerful components of multicultural education curriculum. If literature is a mirror that reflects human life, then all children who read or are read to need to see themselves reflected as part of humanity. If they are not, or if their reflections are distorted and ridiculous, there is a danger that they will absorb negative messages about themselves and people like them. Those who see only themselves or who exposed to errors and misrepresentations are miseducated into a false sense of superiority, and the harm is doubly done. Harris (1992), Raudine Sims Bishop

$$ Cashing In $$Breaux argues that, In the end, the Princess and the Frog will be a financial success, not so much because of the movie, or because it won over African American Audiences, but because as Giroux reminds us that Disney Controls ABC, Numerous TV and cable stations, five motion picture studios, 466 Disney Stores, multimedia companies and two major publishing houses. (p. 156) Disney sold over 50,000 Princess Tiana dolls in addition to Tiana shirts, pajamas, blankets, books and hairbrushes by 2009. (p. 415)

In ConclusionOver the years, Disney has received criticism for their gender interpretations and lack of racial diversity. Disney looked to answer these criticisms with the release of their 9th princess film, The Princess and the Frog. Her determination and strong work ethic have many critics touting Disneys Princess Tiana as a good role model and a wildly progressive step forward in Disneys quest to create intelligent, strong minded female heroines. It is unfortunate, however, that Disney felt the need to scrub Tiana free of her most obvious difference from princesses past her race. After analyzing the film and considering the deliberate steps Disney took to eradicate a history of segregation and racism, I feel that Princess Tiana falls short of the role model I would choose for my own daughter. This movie does little to empower young girls of color. If anything, it shows them that being green is a lot easier than being brown. I do not believe that Disney provided us with its first African American Princess, rather they gave us yet another African American narrator.

Cited workThe Princess and the Frog. Director Ron Clements & John Musker. The Walt Disney Company 2009. LaCroix, Celeste. Images of Animated Others: The Orientalization of Disneys Cartoon Heroines From The Little Mermaid to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Popular Communication. 2.4 (2004): 213-229.Bean, Kellie. Stripping Beauty: Disneys Feminist Seduction. The Emperors Old Groove: Decolonizing Disneys Magic Kingdom. Ed. Brenda Ayres. New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2003. 53-63.Parasecoli, Fabio. 2010. A Taste of Louisiana: Mainstreaming Blackness Through Food in The Princess and the Frog. Journal of African American Studies 14 (4):450-68.Gregory, Sarita McCoy. 2010. Disneys Second Line: New Orleans, Racial Masquerade, and the Reproduction of Whiteness in The Princess and the Frog. Journal of African American Studies 14(4): 432-49.Giroux, H. (1999). The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence. New York.Breaux, Richard. 2010. After 75 Years of Magic: Disney Answers its Critics, Rewrites African American History, and Cashes In on Its Racist Past. Journal of African American Studies 14:398-416

Hurley, Dorothy L.. Seeing White: Children of Color and the Disney Fairy Tale Princess The Journal of Negro Education, 74 (3) 221-232

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